FWL_Engineer said:
After January 1st 2005 it will be illegal for any person to carry out electrical installation work for financial reward who does not meet the criteria for registration in one of the "Competent Person" schemes. They will not have to join such a scheme, but local authorities are being instructed that only those who meet this criteria will be accepted as competent and thus able to submit applications for works and inspections to the local Building Control Department.
That seems odd, as anybody who is Competent doesn't need to involve the Building Control peeps, and the way that it's looked up until now is that if you aren't a Competent Person you
had to notify BC. I wonder if this (apparent) change is to avoid BC from being swamped by applications from fee-charging but unregistered sparkies and kitchen installers etc?
I was going to say that it seems a bit rich to say that people don't
have to join a competency scheme, but that if they don't they may not work for financial reward any more, and that "Join or give up your trade" sounded like compulsion to me.
But then I read it again, and what it says is that if you meet the
criteria for joining a scheme, but choose not to, then you will be able to submit applications for works and inspections to the local Building Control Department. So as well as being asked to carry out one task for which they are ill-equipped (I&T), they are now also going to be asked to decide whether a person
would meet the requirements of membership of NICEIC or whatever? Before they can decide whether to allow him to submit an application? Madness.
I'm not against compulsory standards, and guarantees of competence, as long as they are not overly bureaucratic and don't skew the system in favour of corporate concerns vs small or OMB businesses, but the regime outlined above is ludicrous. Why can't they, via a body which does not represent the interests of the electrical contracting industry, such as the IEE, or the BSI, or RoSPA, devise a scheme of competency verification and registration that is not onerous, and then bite the bullet and say
After January 1st 2005 it will be illegal for any person to carry out electrical installation work for financial reward who is not a member of one of the "Competent Person" schemes. Anybody carrying out electrical work, even as an ancillary activity to their main business (e.g. plumbers, kitchen fitters) must join such a scheme. Local authorities are being instructed to only accept applications for works and inspections to the local Building Control Department from householders wishing to carry out DIY work.
If they really believe the financial analysis presented in the Part P debate, the government could fund such a scheme out of the public purse and still save money.
Further, no company or organistion that wishes to operate in the industry controlled by Part P (Domestic) will be allowed to join a "Competent Person" Scheme or submit applications to local authorities Building Control Department if they are not Owned and Managed by a Qualified Electrician who has been deemed competent to Manage and supervise the workforce
Now that's very interesting. plcs are owned by the shareholders. And do they really mean that the whole company has to be "managed" by an electrician? In a multi-disciplinary business it might be reasonable for that requirement to apply to whoever sits in the organisation structure at the point where all the electrical operations come together, or it might not, but the
whole of the company?
Expect more changes in wording.....
